Abstract
Consciousness as a neuroscientific concept has been loosely employed to encompass several different meanings or aspects of cerebral function in human and nonhuman animals. The term is often applied to states of responsiveness to the environment-being conscious or in a coma, awake or asleep, and being alert or aroused within the waking state. These states can be described behaviorally by observing the human or animal. Here we restrict ourselves to the meaning of consciousness as one of subjective awareness and experience, whether it be sensory experiences of our environment, external and internal, or subjective experiences of our feelings and thoughts, or simply awareness of our own existing self and presence in the world. Our own subjective inner life, including sensory experiences, feelings, thoughts, volitional choices, and decisions, is what really matters to us as human beings. And it is the cerebral, neuronal basis of our subjective experiences that is at issue in the problem of the mind-brain relationship.
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Further reading
Eccles JC. ed (1966): Brain and Conscious Expé rience. New York: Springer-Verlag
Eccles JC (1980): The Human Psyche. New York: Springer-Verlag
Libel B (1973): Electrical stimulation of cortex in human subjects, and conscious sensory aspects. In: Handbook of Sensory Physiology, Iggo A, ed. Berlin: Springer-Verlag
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Libet B. Gleason CA. Wright EW. Pearl DK (1983): Time of conscious intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral activities (readiness-potential); the unconscious initiation of a freely voluntary act. Brain 106: 623–642
Nagel T (1979): Mortal Questions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Chapters 11, 12, 14
Penfield W (1958): The Excitable Cortex in Conscious Man. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press
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Libel, B. (1993). Consciousness: Conscious, Subjective Experience. In: Neurophysiology of Consciousness. Contemporary Neuroscientists. Birkhäuser, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-0355-1_18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-0355-1_18
Publisher Name: Birkhäuser, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-6722-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-0355-1
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